9.1  |  March to 22 May 2003

• powers to place the public sector under Coalition Provisional Authority direction

were too broad.

59.  On 31 March, Ms Vivien Rose, MOD Head of the General and International Law

Team, spoke to Mr Llewellyn and agreed to write a letter outlining what the MOD

considered to be legal issues that needed to be addressed.28

60.  Ms Rose reported that Mr Llewellyn had expressed concern that he was receiving

disjointed requests for advice about specific activities in Iraq and was not “getting a grip

of the whole picture”.

61.  On 31 March, Mr Llewellyn wrote to Mr Chilcott to report that UK military lawyers

based in Kuwait were becoming alarmed at ORHA’s activities.29

62.  ORHA had issued three orders in relation to the port of Umm Qasr,30 including

the application of US labour and customs laws, for which there was no clear legal

authority. The position of UK forces, if asked to participate in related activities, was

therefore uncertain.

63.  Mr Llewellyn’s minute concluded:

“If it cannot be sorted out, we may well need a decision from Ministers about

whether UK forces should decline to take part in actions that we consider

unauthorised or unlawful.”

64.  The IPU provided advice to Mr Straw’s Private Office the following day, including

a speaking note for a conversation with Maj Gen Cross, which took account of

Mr Llewellyn’s concerns.31

65.  The IPU proposed that Mr Straw should brief Maj Gen Cross that:

“Government’s legal advice is very clear: there are real legal constraints on what we

can and can’t do in Phase IV. I’ll need to be closely involved in decisions on what

ORHA does …”

66.  The speaking note also proposed reminding Maj Gen Cross that:

“There’s a direct link between what you are doing and the difficult and complex

negotiations which will start in due course on the Phase IV Security Council

Resolution.”

28  Email LA2-S to LA11-S, 31 March 2003, ‘Phase IV and War crimes: next steps’.

29  Minute Llewellyn to Chilcott, 31 March 2003, ‘Iraq: ORHA: Current Activity’.

30 As described in Section 8, UK forces had taken control of the port of Umm Qasr by the early hours

of 23 March.

31  Minute Bristow to Chaplin, 1 April 2003, ‘Iraq: ORHA’ attaching Briefing ‘ORHA: speaking note for use

with General Cross’ and Paper IPU, 28 March 2003, ‘Iraq: Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian

Assistance (ORHA)’.

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